Boarding Life
Pyke House is our girls’ and juniors boarding house and is located in the historic town of Battle while Clyde House, for our senior boys, is on the outskirts of Hastings, a famous seaside town. Both are within easy reach of the Prep and Senior schools and our boarders enjoy the separation between school and house as it allows them to follow a similar routine to day students.
Each house has a traditional English style, with all modern home comforts, spacious common rooms and large gardens to keep everyone entertained. Both Clyde House and Pyke House have their own unique atmosphere, carefully developed by the house parents. This allows us to meet the individual needs of every student, while offering high standards of care and professionalism.
After school and weekends
As well as all the football and other sporting and extra-curricular opportunities on offer at school, Claremont Boarders enjoy a full programme of social activities in the evenings and on weekends from the creative to sporty, with a bit of everything in between.
During the week, our extensive and varied Clubs programme is designed to develop free-thinking and skills-based learning that inspires leadership, creativity, team spirit, community-mindedness and academic excellence. Some of the most popular clubs this year include: Eco Club; Music Production; Sports Leaders and Space Society.
Keeping up with homework is vitally important and Homework Club at school is popular. In the boarding houses, there is homework time every evening after dinner, supervised by boarding parents.
Trips and visits
We consider boarding life to be an important part of the whole educational experience and it is on the weekends that the two boarding houses come into their own. We put on a varied programme of visits and activities to suit all ages and interests. We sometimes run three trips on the same day so that our students can choose the activity which appeals to them most. Favourite activities of our current boarders include: bowling, cinema trips, Laser-Quest, ice skating, Go Ape forest climbing centre, gardening, zip wire, visits to local museums such as the Observatory Science Centre in Hertsmonceux.
Both boarding houses are close to mainline train stations with fast trains to London meaning that trips to the city’s top cultural attractions, such as the National Gallery, London Eye and Buckingham Palace, are always popular.
An important part of boarding is gaining independence. Year 12 and 13 boarders are also able to visit London while all students may visit nearby towns such as Battle or Hastings on their own (with prior agreement with parents). The weekend is of course an opportunity to catch up with homework and get ready for the week ahead.
On weekdays, students up to Year 11 hand over their phones at bedtime to ensure they get a good night sleep. At the weekend students can go to bed slightly later. They often watch a film together on a Friday or Saturday evening and have a relaxing lie-in in the morning.
